


Joey makes a grave mistake (Haunted Prompt)

by Hello_Im_not_a_possum



Series: Hauntober BATIM Prompts [3]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: AU Where Joey Drew Is A Good Person, Body Horror, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Dismemberment, Gen, I Almost Never Do That, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Werewolves, Wow, batim monster au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26883109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Im_not_a_possum/pseuds/Hello_Im_not_a_possum
Summary: The adults in Henry's childhood town never go near the abandoned church for good reasons. Unfortunately, when Henry's best friend comes to visit, little Joey Sylvester Drew's awe of the supernatural forces make such an area the perfect place to explore.
Series: Hauntober BATIM Prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959598
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Joey makes a grave mistake (Haunted Prompt)

“Now kid, don’t yous eva let me catch ya anywhere near dat church ova dere, it’s a lotta things, but it sure ain’t no house of God no more...”

“Okay! Bye Mr. Polk!”

“An’ be back before sundown! yer folks worry a lot about yous!”

“Will do!”

Ignoring Henry’s neighbor’s warnings, Joey Drew threw his sketchbook, a handful of pencils, an eraser, a flashlight, and his father’s book of the occult into his bag, took his best friend’s hand in his own and immediately skipped off to the old church. (As soon as he was sure that they were out of ol’ Polk’s sight, that is.)

“Isn’t this exciting Henry?! A haunted church, just a half-mile away from here! Think about it; somewhere in the churchyard of this old backwater town is an honest-to-god monster! With large sharp teeth and huge claws! You gotta be at least a _little_ bit curious...”

“But didn’t Mr. Polk warn us not to go there?”

“Pssshh. Mr. Polk’s just a superstitious weirdo.”

“It’s not just him, All the adults say it’s a bad idea to go over there! My dad says he hears hell hounds braying at the moon some nights...”

“Then all the adults here wouldn’t know what fun is if it bit them in the butt!”

“I still think we should go do something else.”

The boy gave his friend a devilish smirk.

“Why? are you _chicken?_ ”

“I’m not a chicken!”

“Yes you are!”

“No I’m not!”

“ _Henry’s a chiiick-eeen!_ ” Joey teased “ _Bawk Bawk Bawk!_ ”

“Joey!” Henry grabbed his friend’s shoulders, forcing him to look at him. “I think that the place isn’t haunted, but it’s probably falling apart and full of dust, mold, spiders and bats. The adults just don’t want us to get hurt or sick!”

“...What _kind_ of bats do you think are in there?”

“Joey, that’s not the point. The point is we can’t go into that church!”

“And we’re not! we’re just gonna check out the graveyard _near_ the church. Even if we don’t go into the haunted church that we’ll probably never see again in our lifetimes-”

“I _live_ here. If I wanted to go there, I’d see it any time I wanted. Why do you want to see the old graveyard, anyway?”

“Because maybe we can find cool bugs to gross out Nathan with somewhere in there.”

Henry tapped his foot and raised an eyebrow at his friend, obviously not believing him.

“Okay, maybe just a little peek won’t hurt?”

“Joey...” He crossed his arms and tapped his foot louder. “If you so much as peek your head in there, I WILL tell your mom where we went.”

“Fine... we won’t go to church.” The boy huffed and pouted, he hated it when Henry played the ‘I’ll tell your mom’ card. “But let’s compromise: we stay in the graveyard until the sun goes down, then I’ll take you back home and I’ll go back to the motel.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

Surprisingly true to Joey’s word, when the boys arrived at their destination, They stayed in the graveyard. Although, that could’ve been because Henry would’ve told Joey’s mom otherwise. Joey Sylvester Drew didn’t fear the unknown horrors of the earthly realm, the wrath of God or even the hottest Hellfire the Devil himself could light up, but he feared his mother’s wooden spoon like no tomorrow.

The two explored the graveyard, wrote down names they thought were either funny or interesting, looked for bugs (but didn’t have any luck, not only were there no bugs to be found, but the spider Joey wanted to catch skittered away too quickly), and when it got a bit late, ate sandwiches (which Henry packed) on the bench under the rotting oak tree and they sketched the eerie landscape, as well as adding skeletons and ghosts coming out of their graves to dance and sing.

“Hey Henry?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever wonder what it would be like to live in a haunted house?”

“Hmm.” Henry paused to take a bite of his fifth sandwich before answering “I don’t think I would be comfortable staying in a place I know that people died in. Especially if they died horribly.”

“Well _I’d_ think it would be cool.” Joey drew a top hat on one of the skeletons. “If I was a ghost, would you let me haunt your house?”

“If you were a ghost and you tried to haunt my house I’d call an exorcist. Why don’t you haunt your _own_ house?”

“Henry!” Joey playfully shoved his friend while laughing. “You’re so mean!”

An hour later, the sky turned to a deep orange, signaling it was time to go home. The boys packed up their things and Joey flicked on his flashlight and led the way back.

However, the thing about autumn is that the sun leaves a lot sooner than it does during the summer, which was practically yesterday for Joey. Soon the stars and silvery sheen of the full moon shone through the pitch black night, the darkness making the shorter boy’s flashlight all the more important.

“Ma’s gonna kill me.” Joey groaned. “I didn’t think the sunset would be so short!”

“Should we tell her we got lost? Maybe she’ll go easier on us then?”

“Don’t do that! She might never let us see each other again if-”

The boys froze in place as they heard leaves rustling behind them.

“Joey?”

“Y-yeah..?”

“Do you hear that too?”

“Mm hmm” Joey gulped. “D-do you think Mr. Polk followed us to make make sure we stayed out of the church?”

“I hope so, but I think he’d call out for us if he did...”

Henry flinched as the rustling grew louder and Joey shined his flashlight towards the source of the noise.

Both boys’ hearts pounded in their ears as they saw the giant snarling wolf.

They screamed and fled but the wolf was far faster than the two boys, catching up on them in mere seconds, but Joey was faster than Henry.

“ ** _AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!_** ”

Henry screamed out in fear and pain as the wolf pounced on him and sank his teeth deeply into his back.

Fueled by adrenaline and the fear of losing his best friend in the world to some monster, Joey grabbed a large branch and threw it at the creature. As it recoiled, the frightened boy grabbed Henry and pulled him away from the beast, running as fast as he could.

Joey was too scared of the beast behind him to notice that Henry seemed to be getting lighter, he also didn’t notice the fur quickly growing on his best friend’s back, or that his teeth were falling out to make room for fangs. But Henry did notice the fur growing on his arms that his fingernails had fallen out to make room for sharp wolf’s claws.

“Joey... You gotta leave me behind!”

“ _NO!_ ” Joey clutched Henry tighter, tears were streaming down his face. “ _I’M NOT LETTING THAT MONSTER TAKE YOU!_ ”

“ _JOEY! PLEASE!_ ” Henry begged, showing his developing paws to Joey. “ _I DON’T WANNA HURT YOU!_ ”

“ ** _YOU WONT!_** ” Joey screamed out of desperation “ ** _I KNOW YOU WONT!_** ”

If Joey was going to be too stubborn to save himself, then Henry would save him. The new werewolf wrenched himself out of the still human boy’s grip with ease and fled into the woods.

But Joey followed him, he followed him and-

##  **_SNAP_ **

Joey found his leg stuck between the teeth of a bear trap.

Henry could smell the fresh blood coming out of Joey’s leg, and he could hear Joey cry and struggle to pry the bear trap open, and hear him flinch in pain as he failed. While he still feared what would happen to Joey when he became a full wolf, he also feared that the other wolf would eat him alive while he was stuck in that trap.

Before his humanity faded away completely, Henry ran back to his friend and broke the trap in half, freeing his very, _very,_ ** _very_** stupid friend.

His voice left him, making him unable to argue with Joey any longer (Unless you counted growling, barking, and howling as arguing.) He pawed and whined at his friend in a desperate plea to get him to leave him, looking much more like a wolf pup in a kid’s clothing than a human being.

While surprised but undeterred by this, Joey scooped up the squirming puppy form of his friend and clutched him to his chest as he limped towards the nearest house with its porch lights on.

* * *

_*Knock* *knock* *knock*_

Joey could hear inaudible grumbling and heavy footsteps from inside the house.

_*Knock* *knock* *knock*_

The front door swing wide open, revealing Henry’s neighbor in his pajamas.

“Don’t yous know what time it is?! You’ll wake the whole town up with all dat rack-”

Norman’s anger quickly turned into shock and concern as he saw the bloody child shaking like a leaf in the wind, the boy had tears and snot still running down his face and was holding a live wolf pup who was still wearing his neighbor’s son’s torn-up sweater.

“Jesus Christ, kid...”

“M-Mr. Polk...” Joey sniffled “...What do I do..?”

Norman let the pair into his home and dressed the boys’ wounds up in bandages that Joey imagined army people carried with them. As he calmed down a little bit and tried his best to explain the situation, Henry’s neighbor didn’t yell or scream at him even once during the ordeal. (Although in his mind, he deserved to be screamed at.) Even after he admitted that he and Henry went to the graveyard by the church that he had _just_ told them not to go to. He just listened patiently and said that he’d do what he could to help.

The rest of the night was a wild blur to Joey, so he assumed that Mr. Polk just called their parents, gave them dinner (Joey fed Henry his food when Norman wasn’t looking as he was too queasy from the experience to eat.) and let them crash on his couch.

The rest of the month, no, the rest of that year was also a blur to Joey. He knew his mom screamed at him for being so stupid, he knew the doctor told him his leg would have to be amputated, and he knew that Henry was horrified about his newfound lycanthropy and even if he’d never admit it, probably resented Joey for condemning him to that.

So he did everything he could to make it up to him. The supernatural forces weren’t as whimsical to him as they used to be but now they were so much more important. There was no cure for lycanthropy, but that didn’t mean that Joey wouldn’t do everything he could to make sure that Henry was at the very least as comfortable as he could be with his condition.

Whether that meant “unknowingly” hiring supernatural beings so that Henry would be less out of place in the office, spending countless hours weaving special charms to make the transformation itself hurt less, hunting down a shape-shifting raven monster and dragging him kicking and screaming into human civilization in spite of the fact his supernatural nature still was not fully understood by Joey, (But he knew that wolves and corvids were often friends, so the bird beast would make an excellent companion for Henry during full moons.) or simply filling up a fridge with bacon. If he knew of it and it would help, then no force on earth would stop him from doing it.

But even decades later when he was growing old and he and his lifelong best friend ran a successful animation studio together. The night where the two of them visited the graveyard still haunted him to this day.


End file.
